


Survivors (Bright with His Splendour Remix)

by marmota_b



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Historical RPF
Genre: Gen, RAF - Freeform, Redemption, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-26
Updated: 2015-06-26
Packaged: 2018-04-06 06:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4211667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marmota_b/pseuds/marmota_b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley did not like wars. He would never learn to like wars. But he had learned enough about wars to ultimately choose the right side, regardless of the consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Bright with his Splendour](https://archiveofourown.org/works/99482) by [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer). 
  * Inspired by [And He Smiled](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/123285) by LeonaWriter. 
  * In response to a prompt by [Daegaer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer) in the [remixmadness2015](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/remixmadness2015) collection. 



> I’ve been sitting on this story, in a mostly-finished form, for quite a while; the Remix Madness provided an opportunity to finally pull it out without shame and polish it off a little. It was, in fact, the first piece of fanfiction I’ve written, inspired by other stories I’d read. That should explain the “Remix” part.  
> So, obviously, some of the characters in it are not mine.  
> Crowley and Aziraphale, and also, originally, the kid, come from _Good Omens_ and belong to Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, although, in the way they are portrayed here, they’re also the brainchild of Daegaer, particularly in [_Bright with His Splendour_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/99482) and other of their war fics. Especially the kid as it is here; and Crowley’s other name. You should go read those, because they are awesome, and they are responsible for what’s happening here. I tried to make it make sense on its own, but I don’t think it does entirely; the part with the kid remains heavily dependent on _Bright with His Splendour_. I did not want to re-write what somebody else had already written better than I ever could. It is also inspired by LeonaWriter’s delightful story [_And He Smiled_](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4888794/1/And-He-Smiled) on FanFiction.net. Both that and particularly _Bright with His Splendour_ are rather AU, and so is this.  
>  C. S. “Jack” Lewis is most probably his own, or his Creator’s, and I’m extremely sorry if I’m offending either of them with this story. I tried to be as good as I could about it. Lewis’ image of Hell in _Screwtape Letters_ seems quite close to that presented in _Good Omens_ , with its bureaucracy and so on. Lewis’ image of Heaven is, of course, not, and neither is mine (as incomplete as either of those is). Thus the AU.  
> Gregory Jameson and Old Sheppard are my own. Any resemblance to other personages, living, historical or fictional, is purely unintentional, except where it isn’t – a part of this was also inspired by the historical [Operation: Jericho](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Jericho).  
> Also, I’d always meant to return to this story after I’d conducted proper research into the lives of RAF pilots in WW2. I’d never found the time to delve as deep as some elements of this story require and I don’t have time to do it now, so now it goes up unsupported by research. Some of it will inevitably be shallow and wrong.  
> I doubt this is good theology. It’s based on a throwaway line in Screwtape Letters, and Jack may not be right about everything. I mean, it’s not theology; it’s a story. I grew up liking Biblical stories, and even though I now get to enjoy other parts of the Bible as well, I still cling to the story quality of all. Stories have to make some sort of sense, and being the believer I am, I think so does life. That the sense does not always make much sense to us is another matter.

_Members of His faction have frequently admitted that if ever we came to understand what He means by Love, the war would be over and we should re-enter Heaven._

_– Screwtape Letters_

 

* * *

 

The Captain had not expected to meet his friend when he took them out to the village inn. He did it for them; he did not even drink himself, although he seemed to be enjoying himself, listening to them converse with the locals as they sat on the wooden benches in front of the inn in the exceptionally sunny April afternoon. It was a rare peaceful moment, one they were very grateful to the Captain for – he seemed to have a knack for this sort of thing, to know where to get better drink than the canteen could offer them, how to steal some rare moments of quiet pleasure for themselves. Officers were not to be trusted as a rule, but Captain Crowley was a rule unto itself. If some stuck up military type had told him he was undisciplining the men, he would not give a damn. He was undisciplining himself with them most of the time. And they would have told anyone who would pry their noses into the matter that the Captain took great care of the way they behaved and would not stand for any sort of nonsense, thank you very much for asking.

So when Captain A. J. Crowley got the unexpected pleasure of meeting his friend – Mr Azra Fell was the name – in return for his efforts for his men, they were all glad for him.

Of course, what with the captain being a bit of a college toff and his friend most probably as well, their meeting was not exactly what you would have expected. They greeted each other seemingly coldly, and went on to speak about some old books or other such subject and argue about it in a lofty manner. But you could see in their eyes that they were both extremely glad to see each other.

Later, they listened to their conversation, to Greg Jameson’s stories of his family (he had a treasury of those) and the village stories the locals countered with, and exclaimed their awe, or amusement, or thrill in the proper places just like any other men. This was what they liked about their Captain. He did not think himself above them. Sometimes, they got the feeling that he thought himself below them.

A man – the local churchwarden – limped slowly past them, greeting the locals and then heading to the church, opening the door and disappearing inside.

“Old Sheppard won’t let it go,” one of the locals laughed. “He barely walks, but he won’t let the church go to ruin.”

“That’s not a bad thing, is it?” the Captain asked. “Perseverance is something we have badly needed so far.”

“Crowley, let’s go to the church,” the Captain’s friend said suddenly and gripped his arm. “I’d like to have a quiet talk.”

“Why does it have to be in the church?“ Captain Crowley objected as Mr Fell dragged him, gently but relentlessly, towards the stone building in the centre of the village. They both disappeared inside all the same, and remained there for some time.

Captain Crowley came back first. There was something determined in his eyes; as it turned out, he had the very firm intention of buying a drink for each of them.

* * *

 “I need to talk to you somewhere inconspicuous,” Aziraphale told Crowley when they were out of earshot of all the people gathered round the inn where they had met.

“Inconspicuous my foot,” Crowley murmured, but he struggled much less than he could have.

The church was open but empty – there was only the churchwarden fixing something around the altar, and he was practically deaf, Aziraphale assured Crowley. He had actually made sure that the deafness would be more pronounced during their time inside, but that, he told himself, was only for the old man’s good. With all the things going on in recent years, he did not need to be bothered with an angel and a demon discussing matters of life and death on top of all that. An RAF officer and his friend coming in for a few moments of quiet was more like it.

They chose the farthest pew, part because of the warden and part in deference to Crowley’s obvious unease at their surroundings; and indeed they sat in quiet for a while, Crowley waiting for what Aziraphale wanted to tell him and Aziraphale wondering how exactly to go about it.

“Well?” Crowley could not wait any longer.

“You’re going to do it again,” Aziraphale blurted out. “You’re starting to care about them all, and then you’ll arrive at a point of no return and go out in blazes of glory.”

Crowley only stared, and it was a very disconcerting stare, even more than his usual yellow one. _Why on earth did it have to be blue?_ Aziraphale thought.

“What made you say that?” Crowley said finally.

“Oh come on, it’s obvious!” Aziraphale cried – squeaked – out. “You even go and praise a faithful old churchwarden! You’re so deep in it.”

“He’s also a grumpy old churchwarden overly concerned with the material side of things,” Crowley tried to counter, but it was a very weak attempt.

“You saw they liked him, and you only supported them,” Aziraphale said.

Crowley nodded gravely.

“You’re so deep in it, you don’t even care anymore what happens to you,” Aziraphale continued. “It’s just like last time. Your hands are shaking all the time; do you think I did not notice that you did not drink? You can’t, you’d spill your drink.”

“I would not. Why are you telling me all this?”

“Crowley, stop for a moment! Let it go! You’re ruining yourself.”

Crowley looked at him with what almost seemed like contempt.

“Angel, you’re tempting me.”

Aziraphale sighed.

“I really hope I’m not. It’s just that you’re so awfully stubborn, someone has to take care of you when you forget to do it yourself...”

Crowley rose abruptly.

“I did not want to offend you,” Aziraphale said quickly. “You can take care of yourself. It’s just that...”

“No,” Crowley said. “I cannot, not quite, not in this situation. You had to tell me, of course, being you. And you’re right.”

Aziraphale blinked in surprise.

“I _am_ going to do it,” Crowley said, grimly. “What do you think; I have been doing it all these five years, have I not? We already had this conversation at the beginning of the war, did we not?”

Aziraphale preferred not to remember that conversation in detail. He had actually sworn back then, quite badly, and swearing was not something he liked to associate with himself.

“I _am_ going to do it,” Crowley repeated. “They want to bring Hell on Earth, and I don’t bloody stand for that sort of thing!”

And with that he went out of the church, before Aziraphale could ask him what then, for crying out loud, had he been doing on Earth all these millennia? But even if he had not gone away, Aziraphale might not have asked him in the end. There was something in those blue eyes of Crowley’s that made him shy away from that question.

He hoped fervently that there would be no more wars in the 20th century. Wars did terrible things to his associate.

He left the church to the sight of his associate paying for a round of drinks for his squadron and accidentally – or perhaps not accidentally at all – including several locals in the round as well.

* * *

 Just a few days ago, they had been sitting in the sun peacefully and sharing stories, jokes and drinks. Now they were in the heat again and what had been two days seemed like years.

Gregory Jameson bit his lips in order not to cry out in desperation. He was an old hand; it should not be affecting him so. He had survived the Blitz and that had been much worse, he should not be feeling slighted by fate. Besides, if the lads knew he was falling apart, they’d be a real ruin. If the Captain could keep it up, so could he.

But it was a bad operation, dangerous to them and dangerous to the people they were here to save. They were under fire from the ground and they had no real way of knowing if the prisoners below were safe.

Suddenly Crowley’s plane swivelled in the air. Then came the Captain’s voice over the radio, accompanied by the hiss of static:

“I’m hit,” he said matter-of-factly. “Not jusst the plane; me. I’m going to take the gunsss down there withth me. Jamesson, keep them out and keep an eye on them. Make ssure they get out ssafe and ssound. All of them prissonerss and all of you. Don’t do anything sstupid. Hear me, boyss? No sstupid sstuntss. Jusst do your job. Crowley out.”

Then the Captain’s plane headed straight into the barrage, pointing down to where most of it was coming from, and as it flew – fell – it took so many hits it was a wonder it did not fall apart midair.

This time Gregory Jameson could not stop the cry. It was inarticulate, just a sound of the extreme pain of something squeezing around his heart.

“Don’t, Jamesson,” was the last he heard. “Jusst... don’t.”

Gregory saw the plane finally fall apart in the rumble and explosion below, and then he could see no more.

* * *

When Aziraphale read the newspaper two weeks after his conversation with Crowley in the village church, he swore rather heavily again. Crowley had done it, old stubborn fool.

* * *

They met for a dinner in the Ritz some time after the war ended. Crowley was still rather disgruntled from the change of “equipment” and the bureaucratic complications that arose about his conduct during the war (as if he couldn’t have seen those coming). He had somehow managed to finally convince his superiors that his only intentions had been keeping people alive well into old age and making them enjoy the Earth a tad too much for their own good. They actually seemed to have swallowed the idea. He knew it was a lie. But they did not need to know that his most evil act in the whole business was lying to them. Now he was sporting his sunglasses again and felt much more comfortable than he had in the last six years or so of constant vigilance over his appearance. He was still vigilant over his appearance – he always was – but this time it had more to do with the cut of his suit and less with the colour of his eyes. That felt good in a familiar way.

“I told you, you know,” Aziraphale said stubbornly, still getting over the war experience.

“Yes, and I told you too,” Crowley countered. “Let’s just say dinner’s on me, fine?”

Aziraphale did not protest. Keeping a demon from getting himself hurt really badly in service to a good cause and with unpredictable consequences for himself from his own superiors (or was it inferiors in Hell?) was one thing; furthering some manners and common decency in said demon was something he felt was his duty to do. Of course, Crowley deliberately avoided fulfilling his promise later that evening. (“I never said I would _pay_ for it!”)

Something was still off, though.

“Have you by any chance met this C. S. Lewis fellow?” Crowley asked during the dinner.

“Why?” Aziraphale gulped, recalling the “fellow” perfectly and fearing the worst from Crowley’s side. After all, that book of fictional letters had definitely cut very close, and Crowley was, as many people had already found out to their misfortune, probably the only demon in existence with a sense of humour. Which made him all the more dangerous. “I hope you will not try to win him over to your side. He’s a very decent sort.”

“Oh, no,” Crowley said distractedly. “I just met him several times during the war. He was teaching my squadron, you know. Some clever things he’s written.”

It was hard to read him with his glasses on, but Aziraphale had had millennia of practice in the Reading Crowley department. And the only thing he could read was some sort of wistfulness.

He wished, for the second time in not so very long, that there would be no more wars in this century.

Of course, as was the case with most of his purely personal wishes (1), this one was not granted either.

* * *

He dimly recalled all that, later, when he faced a War to End All Wars with only a demon at his side, a demon who very deliberately did not stand up for Hell on Earth but rather against it. The demon was doing it again, arriving at a point of no return and about to go out in blazes of – probably not glory this time. This time, Aziraphale was doing it alongside the demon.

Then it all went very quickly and he could never quite remember what exactly had happened. He remembered Crowley had been hissing something about “wrong bloody kid” and the kid had stopped him from saying more. When they stood there, facing what had to come and did not come, he did not have time to think of much more than the fact Crowley was not as bad as he made himself out to be. Crowley, being Crowley, told him he was not as good as he made himself out to be, and he had to admit he was right. All in all, neither of them was much good; but that did not really matter now, because they were going to go out in blazes of disgrace, and the kid would most probably go with them, which made him feel extremely sorry.

Then they did not. And even though it was him who talked their way out of it, it was really all because of the kid.

It was only then that he understood what Crowley, being Crowley, had noticed much earlier. Funny thing, that. That Crowley, who had missed out on the most important thing in the beginning, would be so much more perceptive to it in the end. But then, that was probably the reason why he was not all bad. He could learn from his mistakes.

Aziraphale was determined to do the same now. Learn from his mistakes. Never do those stupid things he had done anymore. Before the boy ran away with his friends, he smiled at the two of them as if knowing everything. Which, of course, He did.

It left them both rather perplexed. It did not make sense; the only sense they could make out of it was the fact that it had happened, however unlikely that seemed. The quiet after the storm also left them both feeling a bit let down, unsure where to direct all that built up energy and resolve now. It just seeped out of them at the moment, unused; if immaterial things like energy and resolve could speak, they would probably now be complaining in high and gruff voices about the misuse.

Nothing had happened; but it was not exactly without consequences. Crowley had lost his beloved car. He, Crowley told him, had lost his beloved bookshop. Those two _had_ gone out in blazes of glory. The two of them that had not were now sitting on a grassy patch with a bottle of wine between them, mourning the things they had had to give up for this unexpected peace and quiet, and finding out that they could not anymore deny that they were friends and brothers in arms. They stood on the same side now. Aziraphale was extremely pleased that Crowley was no more on the side of Hell, but he had to admit to himself it was nothing he could congratulate himself on. He had done nothing to contribute to that.

Which goes to show that some resolutions made in the heat of a crisis actually do survive the calm. And that, when all was said and done, Aziraphale was actually a very humble angel.

A car pulled up then and a delivery man came out of it to collect several items left behind after the Event That Wasn’t. Aziraphale found out he had been sitting on the sword all that time without realising it. Must be the wine getting into his head.

Crowley was unusually quiet most of the time, so Aziraphale assumed he needed some time off, so to say, to figure things out. He decided to leave him alone for the time being, but then, as he had walked several steps away from the Jeep, he suddenly remembered the things wars did to Crowley again and rushed back to make sure Crowley was all right. It seemed he was. More or less.

He slept in the charred shambles of his bookshop and only when he woke up next morning did he realise he had been sleeping. Perhaps because what he saw around himself was more unexpected than any of the dreams that he had dreamt that night.

His bookshop was back.

His bookshop was back, including the cobwebs in the corners. (2)

He reached for the phone. 

* * *

The walk in the park and the dinner they had taken the day after the Event were a bit confused in his memory, much like the Event itself. Aziraphale only recalled that Crowley had, for the first time since the Ritz had been established, actually paid for the dinner. They had both definitely been drunk, but that had nothing to do with it. They had been drunk before. No; something had changed in Crowley, in a very unobtrusive manner. It was as if Crowley suddenly was more of himself than ever before, not needing to prove himself in front of him over trifles. At least that was the vague idea Aziraphale had now that the act was over and he was sober again.

The new day promised to shape up into something beautiful and so he went out, strolling through the mostly empty streets in the general direction of Crowley’s Mayfair dwelling. He found out that in spite of walking dirty London streets, he felt more at Home than he had had in a long time. Well, of course. It all had to do with the proper perspective. But he did not give it much thought; he was too happy for that. He stopped at the duck pond and fed the ducks, dimly recalling someone having fed the ducks the day before. Then, because the day _was_ shaping out into something beautiful, he went on, singing, which he had not done for ages either. It was not the sort of song he had sung a long time ago, because his earthly experience was taking over him and supplying him with the works of Verdi instead, but it seemed strangely appropriate.

As he came up to Crowley’s apartment building, he noticed his friend standing at the open window. Crowley shouted something down at him cheerfully – something inconsequential and factually incorrect – and he beamed back at him, dropping the singing for now. Crowley tossed his black jacket over his shirt and trousers, crumpled from having been slept in, and ran away from the window, down the stairs to meet him outside. When he emerged out of the house, his shirt and trousers were still crumpled, and remained so for a good part of the morning until Aziraphale took pity on him and straightened them. In turn, he found that Crowley had refilled his paper bag, this time not with old bread for the ducks but some sweet pastries. The day was still beautiful, even though a slight drizzle started around eleven.

And as unlikely as it still seemed, they were both alive. They had both come out of it all alive and well, better than they had been since Eden. Probably longer for Crowley.

They ended up sitting at the duck pond again, looking at the concentric circles the drizzle was pressing on the water surface: it started small and spread so quickly you could hardly see how.

“What did happen yesterday?” Aziraphale asked.

Crowley seemed to be racking his head for the answer; then, he blurted out:

“Somebody said ‘ineffable’.”

“So I was thinking,” Aziraphale said, bemusedly, and offered him the last pastry. Crowley accepted it with murmured thanks. “But just what exactly that means?”

Crowley munched on the pastry for a while and then he said:

“I’m not sure. I’m still not sure what exactly happened. But I think I can be fairly sure of what I did, and it seems I ended up being where He wanted me to be.”

“Oh,” Aziraphale said. “Do you think it was all for your sake, then?”

“Probably not just mine; there had to be other things at stake,” Crowley said thoughtfully. “But – yes. In that sense, it _was_ ineffable.”

Aziraphale blinked.

“That’s – – – oh, but please don’t go getting ideas!” he exclaimed suddenly.

Crowley grinned a grin that managed to be both feral and sheepish at the same time.

“It’s humbling more than anything, really,” he said. “And it gives more credence to what He’d said about lost sheep than I thought possible.” Then he mumbled under his breath, but loud enough for Aziraphale to hear: “Figures.”

“So what _did_ you do?” Aziraphale asked. “If you don’t mind telling me.” Crowley shrugged.

“I just decided that I hated the way Hell treated me, and that I didn’t want anyone to be treated that way. And then I saw the kid standing there – before it dawned on me _who_ it was, you know – and – well, I felt sorry for him. I felt sorry that I’d messed things up so horribly and that he got dragged into it, even though it was all my fault and he did not really have anything to do with it. Because as much as I like to convince myself otherwise, it _was_ me who started it all.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Aziraphale said. “Not _all_...”

“Don’t convince me otherwise,” Crowely interrupted him sternly. “I may not have started the War, but I sure as – well, whatever – I started all the trouble here, and I started all the trouble with the kid – even though I did not want to. I did it anyway. I did lots of things I did not exactly want to do, and somewhere along the way I stopped caring. Just because I was telling myself that sort of thing – that it was not my fault, that others made the decisions. But it was _my_ decision all the way down. I may have just sauntered downwards, not fallen – whatever, I still went _down_. And that’s it.”

Then his expression mellowed and he said:

“But thanks anyway.”

Aziraphale blushed and said it was nothing, and could he please continue telling his story? So Crowley did.

“There isn’t much more to say, even though this is the best part,” he said. “Just when I stopped feeling sorry for myself and felt sorry for someone else and what I’d done, I realised He was there – I bet there’s some kind of morale in there. Anyway, He was there, and I felt – I felt like I was Crawly again and had my legs taken from me, and I felt that I deserved everything that would come. But it did not come, and I was given wings instead.”

“Oh, dear boy!” Aziraphale exclaimed and squeezed his hand in an awkward, but ultimately comforting and comfortable gesture. Crowley squeezed back.

“And that’s about it,” he said. “It did not go so quickly – I think I only just realised the last part today – but really, that’s about it.” He smiled and looked Aziraphale in the eyes, blue against blue – soft yet sharp grey against Aziraphale’s clear baby-blue. (“And when exactly did _that_ happen?” Aziraphale wondered.)

“For the record, the name’s Kanaphiel,” the dark-haired angel said.

“Oh.”

Aziraphale found himself blushing again.

“I’m afraid I’m already too used to Crowley to be able to switch smoothly,” he said.

Crowley laughed.

“Don’t worry, I don’t mind at all. I don’t think it matters all that much. I just wanted you to know.”

“Thank you.”

“No, thank _you_.”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying everything – even the light drizzle that made their sitting on the bench like that slightly awkward.

Then, Aziraphale was struck by another thought, one that left him feeling light around the stomach in a not entirely comfortable way. To tell the truth, not comfortable at all.

“Oh, Crowley, but this all means the Agreement is off. And – please, don’t get me wrong, I’m so very happy for you – and myself, frankly – you more, because this is so completely amazing – but – but – it means you’ve switched sides, and now your – I mean, now Down Below will be sending someone else, and that only means trouble and – oh, Crowley, they’ll send someone after _you_! What if-“

Crowley rose from the bench and stopped this tirade by gently pressing two fingers over Aziraphale’s mouth.

“Don’t give me that,” he said. “I know all that already. I knew it when I knew I was switching sides. I know it comes with a price, for me at least. But I don’t care. He won’t let us down. We’ve survived the Apocalypse; we’ll survive this.”

* * *

 

(1)   With the exception of wishes partaking to old books, particularly rare first editions. There seemed to be some sort of loophole there. It was this loophole that, later in the century, landed the last surviving copy of _Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch_ in the back seat of Crowley’s Bentley. In all ineffability, even loopholes have their purpose.

(2)   In spite of appearances – in spite of Aziraphale appearing to be a reckless antique book seller who did not really want to sell and therefore kept the shop in a state of neglect to put off potential customers – the cobwebs did have a place in the shop. Spiders had to live somewhere, and Aziraphale found them to be quite engaging companions on those days when Crowley sulked or was otherwise out of reach.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am aware that that line about their respective eye colours can come across as awkward. I operate under the assumption that an angel in a human body is painfully aware of its appearance in ways humans don't normally think about it.


	2. Chapter 2

When he went to teach Christianity to the pilots, it was his soldier’s instinct kicking in. To go and do what he could wherever he was sent to be. Even when he did not feel entirely up to the task. He also found out soon enough about all the ways he was not up to it, but he was learning quickly. With each day and each session, he was less of an academic teacher and more of a teacher in general.

It seemed the whole of Britain had a soldier’s instinct kicking in. Everybody was doing all they could, where they could. Pilots were found where no pilots had seemed to be – dreadfully few of them, but they were there. Soldiers. Local Defence Volunteers. Civilians were doing all they could, too, housewives learning to make do and mend, people in the country – him included – accepting into their houses and families children from endangered cities. Even before the war proper had begun, he learned, some people had accepted into their families Jewish children from countries now part of Hitler’s Third Reich.

In all its scariness and all the alarm, there was something admirably noble about the whole business, he thought over his dismal cup of coffee and slice of bread in one of the pilots’ canteens he was now closely acquainted with.

“People are capable of things you’d never expect of them,” a weary voice with a slight lisp broke him out of his thoughts as if its owner had read those thoughts.

He looked up and saw it was Captain Crowley, sitting over a glass of whisky in the other corner of the room. He had not been properly introduced to Captain Crowley; he never went to his lectures. He had been told the chap had been to Oxford and studied Divinity before he got fed up with it. That had to have something to do with the young man’s absence from his lectures, he pondered. He could not remember his face from Oxford, but then, in spite of what he was doing now, Divinity was not really his department.

“In peace time, they’d bicker on about a single apple falling into their neighbour’s garden and said neighbour picking and eating it; war comes and they share those apples freely,” the man continued.

“Do you speak from experience?” Jack smiled.

“Something like that happens all the time,” the Captain shrugged. “People are hypocrites.”

“That word is usually used for people who behave in the exact opposite way,” Jack pointed out. Captain Crowley laughed a mirthless laugh.

“Perhaps because these snaps of good will come about rarely. People usually get to see the worse side of themselves. They have no need for the opposite word. Or they think so, anyway. People, you know, are also capable of coming up with the worst things on the Earth.”

Like automatic rifles and gas weapons and bombs, Jack thought with a mental shudder.

“And what exactly is your point?” he said aloud.

“I wish I knew,” his unlooked-for disputation opponent shrugged. “It all gets blurred when one gets oneself into a war. You think you know what people around you are like and you find out you had known nothing.” It sounded as if it pained him a lot.

“Perhaps,” Jack said, “it’s because there are always unexplored depths in people.”

“Oh, there sure are,” Crowley said, looking into his glass. “That’s about the only thing you can be sure about. Depths.”

Jack wondered whether it was the whisky speaking. The Captain did not seem really drunk, though.

“And you always have to choose a side and then you come to see it was the wrong one all along,” Crowley added bitterly.

“I do not think you are on the wrong side now in this war,” Jack said.

“No. Not in this war, that’s at least another thing I can be sure of. It’s just bloody not sure it’s the winning one. I have a tendency to choose the losing side.”

Jack wondered whether bringing up the issue of his studies was a good idea when they had not been formally introduced, and then thought that since the man did not seem to pay heed to _that_ fact at all, it did not really matter.

“Was leaving the study of Divinity another wrong side you chose?” he asked.

The man laughed. This time, there was a hint of amusement in his laughter, but it did not sound very joyful either.

“Something to that effect,” he said. “It did not seem to be doing what I thought it was supposed to be doing.”

“You think _Divinity_ was the wrong side?” Jack wondered at his wording.

“It hardly ever is,” Crowley answered. “That’s part of the problem.”

Jack found out he did not understand him after all.

“Why would you choose a wrong side deliberately?” he asked.

“That’s another part of the problem,” the man said. “It’s _the_ problem, really.”

Jack found he had nothing much to say to that. The Captain did not seem to have much to say after that, either. He kept turning his mostly-empty glass of whisky in his fingers, as if unable to make the leap of emptying it completely.

“You’re resentful, because you do the foolish thing of staying in the wrong,” Jack said in the end. “Knowing it is the foolish thing to do.”

“It’s never as simple,” Crowley said. “Sometimes it’s hard to go back, even when you know it would be the right thing to do.”

“I know,” Jack said. “Some time ago, I actually was the most reluctant convert in the whole of Britain.”

Crowley shot him a piercing look, thoughtful and frightful.

“I don’t think you really know,” he said. “I don’t think you really know what Hell is like.”

Jack shuddered.

“You do?” he asked, and somehow he knew the answer really was “yes”.

Captain Crowley rose, downing the rest of the whisky in his glass in one long gulp.

“I do,” he said grimly. “It’s coming with those Messerschmitts, trying to claim Britain as its own. I won’t let my country end up like that, in spotless organisation and fear. I rather like its little quirks.”

“Then, perhaps, there’s still hope for you,” Jack said.

“Are you telling me to come to one of your lectures?” the Captain asked, smirking.

Jack shrugged.

“Do you think it’s what it takes?” he asked. “Let me only tell you this: I have found out that when trying to explain Divinity to people who have not gone to Uni, it makes me go to the core of things without alluring big words getting in the way.”

Crowley considered that.

“Just promise me you won’t go about saying it’s all ineffable,” he said.

Jack laughed.

“That’s definitely one of those big words I cannot afford to be using,” he said.

Crowley laughed, too, and this time there actually was a hint of joy in his laughter.

* * *

 It was several weeks before Jack saw Captain Crowley again, weeks full of combat and death for the latter and sleepless nights for both of them.

But the next time Jack saw Captain Crowley again, when things finally calmed down a bit, Crowley was sitting in the back of the room at his lecture.

He only spoke once during the session, when Jack had gotten into a tight spot in a discussion of souls and eternal life with one of the pilots, Gregory Jameson. Jameson had a hard time grasping the point Jack was trying to make about death not being permanent. Jack could not exactly blame him; he’d been to war himself. He knew what seeing your friends die was like. It was, however, one of those moments he was finding himself entangled by language.

“That’s because you only look at it from one side, Greg,” came the Captain’s voice from the back of the room. “You’ve seen their bodies’ functions terminated in a terrible manner. So you assume it would have been better for them to die quietly in their sleep or something. And perhaps, from that point of view, you’re right; but those bodies are only one side of things. They’re just – equipment, for this world. But it’s not all there is. Or do you really think your friends are only this flesh and bone? Because if they were, you could buy a friend at the nearest butchery.”

A boom of laughter erupted in the room; the dire, dark, biting humour of men walking a tight rope between life and death. But it had served its purpose. Crowley’s biting remark postulated the idea of immortal souls better than Jack’s lecturing ever could.

Jack then met him outside the building, looking away to the East with an expression of mixed apprehension and relief.

“You are not so resentful anymore,” Jack noted.

“I guess not,” Crowley said. “No less desperate, though,” he added, trying to light a cigarette with shaking hands.

“More, I’d say,” Jack said gently and lit the cigarette for him. Crowley thanked him with a nod and drew in the smoke with a sigh.

“May I ask something?” Jack said. Crowley nodded again. “I was wondering why you opened up to me. It seems – people told me – you don’t normally go for that kind of conversation. Least of all with people you don’t know.”

“You remind me of someone,” Crowley said, with a quirky smile playing on his lips. “With that relentless belief of yours that people are inherently good.”

“I would not say that,” Jack protested. “You said it yourself; people are capable of terrible deeds.”

Crowley laughed.

“You still believe people are inherently good. You believe things are inherently good overall. You believe it will all work out in the end.”

Jack saw what he meant now.

“I believe in a good God,” he said. “A good God who created the universe we find ourselves in and continues to act in it. So I guess you’re right there.”

“That’s the crux of the matter,” Crowley said simply.

“You don’t believe that,” Jack said, as a statement but a hidden question all the same.

“I don’t know what I believe anymore. I just know I can trust people like you, even when it’s an utterly mad thing for me to do.”

It was one of the greatest compliments Jack had ever received. It was also one of the scariest things he had ever heard someone say.

“You have the air of a doomed man about you,” he said, after a while. “But you don’t strike me as a doomed man really. You seem like a survivor.”

Crowley turned to him, surprise in his eyes.

“You seem like someone who knows how to take care of himself,” Jack added, thinking in the back of his mind that this was completely surreal, and who was he to be telling this man all this when he normally never did that kind of thing either?

Crowley then stared into the distance for a long time again.

“I can,” he said. “Until the time I start caring about something else than me. It all goes into the ditch then, because I’m awfully bad at caring. But when I start, I’m awfully bad at stopping, too.”

His hands were still shaking.

“Does that happen a lot now?” Jack said gently, indicating the shake.

Crowley shot him a confused glance and then understood.

“Oh, that. I don’t really know. I guess yes, it happens all the time now. But it does not really matter anymore.”

I don’t really matter anymore, his eyes said.

“You care a lot about your squadron,” Jack continued. “I could see that back at the lecture, when you spoke to Jameson.”

Crowley smirked.

“I may go into the ditch, but I’m doing all this so that they won’t,” he said.

“You have forsaken your own soul, but you won’t have that happen to your men,” Jack said. “You seem to be certain that you have no hope yourself, but you are giving out all the hope you can. Captain Crowley, I don’t know if anyone has ever told you that, but... you are a rare man. I cannot think of anyone else who would have done that.”

Crowley chuckled, some kind of joy appearing in his cold blue eyes.

“No one has ever told me that,” he said. “I think you were right. There may still be hope for me. I’ll be damned, but I may do something good along the way.”

So he had somehow managed to return the compliment.

“You still seem certain that you’ll be damned.”

“Well, I’m sorry to tell you, some things don’t change,” Crowley said. “I already am.”

“I don’t think so,” Jack said. “You’re not behaving like a damned man. You’re only behaving illogically.”

“Some things are illogical,” Crowley said. “If you see me in Heaven, it will be the most illogical of all.”

And he laughed and threw the remnant of his cigarette away in a bold arch.

“I’m already walking the edge of the knife now,” he said. “I’m done with worrying about this kind of things. Fancy a glass of whisky? It’s on me.”

* * *

 He had a glass of whisky with Captain Crowley several times after that. They did not speak of the matter anymore; very often they did not speak about anything, which was a new experience for Jack. During the times when they did talk about something, they discovered a common love for Chesterton’s writing, which surprised Jack in Crowley, but also pleased him immensely. Crowley’s hands were still shaking, but he seemed quite calm now and also enjoying life very much, enjoying Jack’s company whenever he came and the company of his men. He also always attended Jack’s lectures now, always sitting in the back and usually saying nothing at all. Jack was still rather confused about him, but that calmness seemed to be calming Crowley’s men and that, Jack realised, was probably what mattered most right now.

Crowley complimented Jack on _Screwtape Letters_ some time after the series ended. “It was a right good laugh in some parts,” was what he said. “And quite spot on.”

“Frankly, I’m glad to be rid of it,” Jack said. “Writing it was horrible.” But if it had made Crowley laugh and stop to think, perhaps it had served its purpose.

“Now you know at least a bit,” Crowley said, suddenly without humour. It was the closest they got to mentioning the subject of their first two talks in a long time.

“I got a glimpse of something I never wish to see again,” Jack agreed. “Although I fear I shall.”

Crowley looked serious.

“Balance it out, somehow, then,” he said. “There need to be more simple good things like walks in a park with a friend in this world.”

Jack smiled.

“Funny you should mention that. You reminded me of Tolkien. Maybe I should dedicate the book to him.”

“Do. I said it because you remind me of that...” He did not finish the sentence.

“That friend of yours?”

“Someone like that,” Crowley shrugged. “I guess he’d like you. He’s the bookish sort.”

“Perhaps I’d like him, too,” Jack said.

“Well...” Crowley smiled absent-mindedly, “I think I actually owe him.”

He reached into a pocked in his jacket and drew out a rather beaten card with a name and address written on it, in ink and a beautiful flowing script that Tollers would have loved.

A. Fell, was the name. The address was to a shop with antique books in Soho.

“It’s been a long time since that was a respectable address,” Crowley said. “He’s the sort who won’t notice that kind of thing.”

“I rather like that,” Jack said. “I don’t usually get on well with people who care about respectable dress and respectable address.”

There was an amused glint in Crowley’s eyes at that.

“Don’t tell me you care about such things,” Jack added, feigning offence.

“Apparently, not as much as I thought I did,” Crowley laughed carelessly. Jack joined in the laugh; it felt good to hear Crowley laughing genuinely.

“Be careful about your approach,” Crowley went back to the original subject then. “He rather treats his shop as his personal bibliotheca and normally tries to scare off visitors, even though he’s otherwise a very friendly person. But I think if you tell him you’re the man behind _Allegory of Love_ and those talks on the radio, it’ll be fine.”

* * *

Jack went into Mr. Fell’s shop the next time he was in London. It had survived the raids and seemed a pleasant enough place, if full of cobwebs and dust in the corners. It was also full of rare books that had the look of being read regularly about them – no dust to be found on them – and Jack suddenly understood Crowley’s remark about personal bibliotheca; the man behind this had impeccable taste, and not just the fashionable kind of taste. Mr. Fell was indeed a bit wary of him at first, but Jack followed Crowley’s advice and told him who he was and that broke the ice amazingly. In the midst of an extremely interesting conversation about 16th century Bible translations and their impact on the literature and language of the time, over a cup of tea and a slice of pie better than any he had had since the war started, Jack somehow managed to mention Captain Crowley. The reaction to that was rather surprising.

Mr. Fell’s eyes got almost as big as the saucers under their cups, and he exclaimed – no, blurted out:

“How’s the fool coping? He hasn’t gone out in a blaze of glory yet?”

“No, “Jack said, “not that I know of. Although he seems to be steering that way... He seems extremely dedicated to his men while caring very little about his own fate. I’m sorry to worry you about your friend; but you seem to know him yourself.”

“Better than anyone else on this Earth,” Mr. Fell said, blushing slightly. “We don’t always get on, but he’s a good boy, in his own way. Only he’s so dreadfully stubborn. He would not like me saying that.”

“Stubborn, yes, that would cover it nicely,” Jack said thoughtfully. “He seems determined to be doomed.”

Mr. Fell sighed.

“He would not stay behind, of course,” he said. “And that makes it all the more difficult. You cannot condemn him; he does too good a job of it himself, while being inexplicably selfless and heroic all at the same time.”

“How long have you known him?” Jack ventured to ask.

Mr. Fell seemed to contemplate the answer to that question a bit too long for how vague it eventually came out.

“Oh, ages,” he said. “And he’s going to do it. I know he is. He’ll save his men and Britain and die in the process. Oh dear.”

Mr. Fell seemed overwhelmed by worry. He proceeded to clumsily offer Jack more tea and pie.

“I cannot plunder your provisions like that,” Jack protested.

“Nonsense,” Mr. Fell said absent-mindedly, helping both Jack and himself to a well-sized piece of pie. “What good would the fruits of the earth be to us if we could not share them?”

Jack wondered whether that was where Captain Crowley’s tendency to pay for the rounds in the canteen had come from.

* * *

 He read the item in the news over his breakfast in Oxford and spilt his tea on the paper.

“What’s the matter, Jack?” one of his friends asked.

It took a while before the daze cleared out at least a bit and he could answer.

“No matter how much you tell yourself that the war has to take its toll, it always comes as a shock,” he said finally.

“No manner of preliminary measures prepares you for the real thing,” his friend agreed. “Who was it? One of your pilots?”

Jack spoke slowly, trying to sort out his own rapidly rushing and conflicting thoughts.

“Captain Crowley. We grew rather close, even though I did not really know him. But I got to know him very closely in spite, the way you get to know people you have discussions with, you see. He had studied Divinity here, so I guess that... He left the school, and seemed a broken man, but he was not really broken inside. He was an amazing officer, for one thing; he genuinely cared for his men. He had an air of a doomed man around him from the beginning, but he kept pushing on and I always thought – I always kept hoping that he was a survivor.”

His friend nodded.

“That’s tough,” he said only, and there was not much else he could have said, or Jack would have wanted him to say. He spent the rest of the day shaking off the daze. He vaguely wondered how Mr. Fell was coping; Mr. Fell who seemed to have known with a certainty from the beginning of the war that his friend was about to die.

Later, he learned how it had happened. Captain Crowley had been shot down in combat over Germany: that was what the impersonal item in the newspaper told him. What his pilots told him, Jameson in particular (Jameson was the last survivor of Captain Crowley’s original squadron and was very shaken by the event), was a story of quiet heroism. In the last weeks before his death, Crowley seemed to have come to terms with his life, one way or another. He continued in the practice of sharing; not just with the men of his squadron, but practically anyone that came his way. “We went to the village on our last leave, all of us, and he paid for all of us, even the locals,” Jameson said. “He did not even drink himself, he just sat there and listened to us, grinning at us as if he knew it was the last thing he was going to do on this earth and wanted to enjoy it. I mean, sure, it seems like it now when I know, but it seemed like it then as well. He was doing everything as if it were the last thing he would ever do so he could just as well do it right. I wish I could do that before I die, Mr Lewis. So fearlessly.”

And Crowley’s death had definitely been fearless. His plane was shot in a strafing run over a POW camp that turned out to be better defended than they had expected. He was wounded himself and knew he would probably soon die of his wound even if he managed to get out of the fight, at least that was the way Jameson put it. Instead of trying to pull out, he had told his men to keep in a safe distance and watch out for the prisoners and then flown straight into the machine guns in the midst of a heavy barrage. By the end, Jameson said, his plane must have held together only by the strength of his will and God’s grace. Jack somehow believed it. Captain Crowley did go out in a blaze of glory, taking the prison’s defence with him and saving the eleven men of his squadron and some two hundred prisoners in the process. And he knew it when he did it.

The war in Europe ended not long after; the fighting continued in the rest of the world, though. When it was all finally over, one crisp autumn evening, Jack found himself reminiscing of Crowley in a conversation with his friend again. They went for a walk in the park behind Magdalen and perhaps that was what reminded him, the walk in a park and the fact that it was finally over and people could live in peace again, enjoying the little quirks of their country more than its heroism. Unless they chose to bicker on about apples...

“It is bitter irony that he should have died so close before the end of the war – that so many people have to die before the end of a war,” he told his friend as they walked among the autumn-coloured trees. “But as I hinted in _Screwtape Letters_ -“ – in spite of the dedication, the book would always remind him of Crowley – “- war has the capacity of bringing out the best in people, giving them an opportunity to do their duty and do good; and now I believe it even more. I never learned what made Crowley into the person he was; he might have done nothing more than grow disillusioned, or some truly horrible things, for all I know. But he did his share of good in the war. He took care of his men, and I suspect he is much responsible for Jameson’s faith. When he died, he made sure that no more people would die than necessary. And just a few days before his death, as he took his men out to a nearby village and made sure they had a good time, he met up with his friend Fell and got a chance to say good-by to him properly. Jameson said they had gone to the church together; so, perhaps, he had found peace in the end, and that was why he died the way he did.”

They were quiet for a long while; there was no sound to be heard but the rustling of the leaves under their feet and an occasional rook’s crow somewhere in the crispy distance.

“Then, perhaps,” Jack’s friend said finally, “he was a survivor after all.”

* * *

 Jack kept Captain Crowley in his prayers for the rest of his life on this earth. It would be a lie to say he was not surprised when he learned who Captain Crowley was and just how his prayers were answered. But then, as Crowley had said, some things were illogical; and as much as he seemed to have disliked the word, some things were most certainly ineffable.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of Jack's experiences in teaching RAF pilots are touched on in "God in the Dock" - namely the problem of language and university education getting in the way.  
> That bit with an apple falling into a neighbour's garden is shamelessly borrowed from _Ducháček to zařídí_ , a Czech comedy from 1938.  
> "Bold arch" is shamelessly borrowed from a short story by Karel Poláček.


End file.
